


Start your week by ending it

by soborico



Category: Wooden Overcoats (Podcast)
Genre: Drunken Shenanigans, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Rivalry, developing feelings, eric chapman is perfect, funn name puns, life's irony, people have said these two are fun to write and it's true, rudyard funn is a human disaster dropped in a bog and then set on fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 13:53:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17081522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soborico/pseuds/soborico
Summary: It’s like 3AM and my sister locked me out of the house and I forgot my keys and I’m really drunk pls take pity on me and let me crash at your place for the night o’ neighbor of mine AU





	Start your week by ending it

Rudyard has been fumbling for the past - ugh, he didn’t know how long - looking for his keys. He’d lost all feeling in his fingers from the chill of past-midnight air, and it seemed that Antigone was most _definitely_ ignoring him.

“Ah, for the love of… You silly, stubborn, senseless… woman!” He yelled out lamely, voice croaky from overuse. Placing his hands on his hips he decided to stare the door down into submission. It would surely open. Eventually.

“Antigone!”, he screeched, resuming his previous tactic. Rudyard had never understood the dislike his twin held for him, but he was perfectly content with living with it as long as it _didn’t_ leave him outside of the house in the middle of the night!

His drunken mind had suddenly dictated such a strong impulse of anger that it made Rudyard consider throwing his shoes at the house windows as quite a good idea. It wasn’t of course, and upon throwing his left shoe - while forgetting to put the now bared foot down - he managed to magnificently propel himself right on his ass.

A plethora of insults followed, somewhere along the lines of ‘stupid keys and stupid shoes and stupid windows and _stupid Chapman_ ’. Whereupon it all stopped. Actually, Rudyard wasn’t too sure he was breathing anymore.

Chapman would help him, he thought as he stood up and hobbled across the street towards the man’s home. He would, wouldn’t he? Surely. Chapman helped everyone. It was the law. No wait- that might’ve been ‘do not lie’. Or maybe ‘do not kill’. Rudyard wasn’t so sure anymore. But no matter, he could ask Chapman when he showed up, and ah- there he went opening the door already.

“Rudyard?” He heard his name dazedly spoken out. Rudyard could almost distinguish an undertone of awe hidden within those two syllables. Chapman always greeted him with only his name, he had noticed. Rudyard quite liked it, if he were honest.

“Rudyard could you please stop leaning on my doorbell?” The young man opened the door wider and beared against the instinctual shiver from the cold in order to push at his rival’s wrist. “Why are you here at three in the morning? It’s freezing! You’re freezing! And- where’s your shoe?”

They both snapped their gazes down towards Rudyard’s leftie, clad in a red and blue striped sock. He wriggled his toe as if to make sure that the foot was indeed his and twisted his mouth into a smile. “Made you look,” he whispered conspiratorially.

“Are you drunk?” Eric asked him.

“No.”

“Yes, you are!”

“You can’t prove it.”

“You _smell_ of alcohol!”

“No, _you_ smell of alcohol!” Ha. That’d show that smug bastard. Show what and to whom he wasn’t sure, for as quickly as one long-blink-almost-a-short-nap he already found himself in Chapman’s living room bundled up in comfortable, snug blankets with pretty patterns and- “Is this handmade?” Rudyard exclaimed holding handfuls of the material up to his eyeball.

“Made it myself,” came the overly cheerful tone of his arch-nemesis from the kitchen.

“Of course you bloody have.”

Chapman’s living room wasn’t much, but it was _warm_ and oh so cozy, Rudyard felt himself slipping towards blissful rest.

“Have a sip of this before you go to bed.” And Rudyard did. What he definitely _did not do_ was moan at the perfect mixture of sweetened fragrant tea that he felt warm up his whole body.

“How’d you know this is how I take it? Have you been spying on me, Chapman?”

“Part of the whole arch-nemesis thing I’m afraid,” answered the man with a quirk of his lips that made his overly handsome face all the more _unbearable._ Rudyard hid his fusion of a whimpered-gasp by gulping down some more tea and essentially burning his tongue to hell. Who knew pain could be so comforting?

“How come you’ve been drinking so much? It’s not even Monday.”

Rudyard sputtered. “It wasn’t _that_ type of a night. I was drinking out of happiness, actually.”

“Oh, really? How come?”

“Well, sorry to be the bearer of bad news Chapman, but I’ve come up with the perfect plan to put your business in the ground. Because that’s where it belongs. And because that’s my job.”

Eric’s face lighted up with mirth, happy to play along. “How are you going to do that?”

“I can’t bloody well _tell_ you, can I? You’ll throw a ‘stick’ in my plans! Or was it a ‘spanner’? ‘Bomb’? You’ll muck it up, is what I mean.”

“Alright, I understand. But tell me, did you by any chance come up with this genius plan while out on your boozing excapade?”

“Yes, actually. It loosens the mind you know, let’s you think outside the box.” Eric nodded on sagely before standing up in search of something.

“You know what else alcohol loosens?”

“What?”

“The memory.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Ah, there it was.

“Wait, I don’t get it.”

Eric sat back next to him all a smile and a chuckle. “I mean it might make you forget your brilliant plan until morning. No worries though, I’ve got you sorted,” he said, presenting Rudyard with a sleek black notebook and a fancy pen. The drunk man almost threw up at this show of class.

“Right, I should write it down. Hold on, _why_ are you helping me? This is going to bring about your ruin! Do you want me to write it down so you can read it all _later_? Chapman!”

“No, no! Rudyard, relax. Nothing of the sort. You can keep the notebook if you want to.”

“Yes,” he whispered furtively while clutching it tightly at his chest. “Now do get out, so you’re not tempted to peek.”

“Of course,” he replied with a smile yet again gracing his lips. “Get some rest afterwards, okay Rudyard? Alright. Enjoy yourself.”

Once left alone, Rudyard saw to his writing task and then promptly went to sleep.

 

Morning presented itself with a soft glow through the room’s draperies. Eric could hear birds chirping outside, but they weren’t loud enough to bother him. Still, he had a guest to attend to. He’d catch up on sleep some other time.

Upon entering the living room he spotted Rudyard messily snoring on his couch, his handmade blanket clutched in a death-like hug. Eric thought it cute.

He woke his guest up with a cup of coffee - a fresh blend of Colombian beans with a touch of froth to take the sting off of the first sip. It was a wasted effort on his part, as Rudyard was too bleary-eyed and confused about his location to realise what high-quality drink he had just poured down his throat.

“Sorry about the bother, it was all a terrible fuss,” his guest said later on while on his way out, quite rose-cheeked and embarrassed from what Eric could tell.

“No worries, it was quite a fun experience,” Eric replied warm-heartedly. Rudyard’s face scrunched up in thought. Had it been fun to deal with his drunk rival? Would Chapman use the past evening as blackmail? Would he force Rudyard’s hand into giving up all his company secrets? Did his company even have secrets?

“You know, like your name,” the man in question supplied once he noticed he might have been misunderstood.

“Oh, ‘fun’. A Funn experience...I get it. You know, once you’re out looking for a new job you could try comedy. I’m sure you’ll find some people are still interested in that.”

Rudyard revelled in the way Chapman’s face blanched. “Sure,” the man squeaked out, not unlike Madeleine.

“Well, I’ll best be off - plans to carry out and all that.”

“Yeah. See you around Rudyard. Come by anytime.”

As if. He’ll never be caught on that pretty-proper-perfect man’s couch ever again. Unless it were for a big sum of money, in which case Rudyard might just give it another go.

 

Back at home, once Antigone and him went at each other’s throats in their routinely morning squabble, and then went at it for a bit longer to make up for the one they skipped last night, Rudyard barricaded himself in his room. He pushed a chair on the door, covered all windows and even apologetically placed a heavy book in front of Madeleine’s mouse hole. He needed to do this on his own.

He reverently placed his notebook on an emptied out table and opened it noiselessly. In front of him lay the course of action that would wash away all the toil and suffering he had gone through at the hands of Eric Chapman in the past few months. No more endless running about, no more hearing that dreadful motto, no more unexpected parties, no more chocolate fountains, and no more _coffee machines_. Rudyard could almost weep of joy.

His eyes turned downwards and he braced himself for the indubitable mind-blow he’d have to experience. Upon the page lay one single word:

“Dolphins.”

Rudyard’s soul stopped mid-ascension.

“DOLPHINS?! WHAT’S THAT EVEN SUPPOSED TO MEAN?”

Would he be able to remember his plan if he’d get plastered all over again? At least he’ll have a comfortable couch to crash on, if nothing else. Rudyard conceded that today was one of _those_ Mondays. 

**Author's Note:**

> have you noticed I quite like Rudyard's name? it's been mentioned about 30 times throughout the story and honestly?? still not enough  
> also the fact that eric only greets rudyard with his name has been busted in s3 and maybe also s2 but i still live for it so you gotta snatch it out of my cold, dead and embalmed hands WO writers TRY ME


End file.
